Implausibility of gassing as a method for mass killing

[PangaeaProxima]

I do think the American gas chambers provide some relevant data, but American capital punishment is also highly bureaucratic.

The immense effort needed for executing even a single person by hydrogen cyanide gassing is highly relevant. While you may yield some savings by cutting corners on safety, this obviously can't go too far even if you train other prisoners as operators for the gas chambers. You won't do much gassing, if your operating crews constantly get killed themselves. There are of course other possible choices for gassing humans like carbon monoxide, for instance, that would pose less problems than hydrogen cyanide. But what can you do? That is what was chosen for the Holocaust narrative and that is a hill Holocaust Affirmers want to die on, so let them.

Note that I recognize that there are scenarios in which "basic" methods like shooting might not be appropriate and the increased effort for more "exotic" methods might make sense. The euthanasia program comes to mind - you probably don't really want to do shootings in psychiatric facilities. While this program in contrast to the Holocaust really existed, the propagandistic distortions here also make it difficult to establish what exactly happened. It seems that malnourishment was an important method used, so essentially also a "basic" method. However, there are also claims about gassing with carbon monoxide.

Example:
Someone might argue against the existence of aliens by stating that it is simply too implausible to believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe, even if there is no concrete evidence to disprove it.

Actually, there exists significantly more evidence for alien intelligent life than mass killings by gassing - we can point to one example for intelligent live in the universe, ourselves, but none for a mass killing that was done with gas chambers.

But seriously, the comparison is not really appropriate. We don't have interstellar travel yet, so the answer to this question is necessarily highly speculative. When it comes to judging methods for mass killing on our (not so) good old earth, however we can do so based on actual solid data. I note that you did not even try to refute this data.

But the choice of this comparison is highly revealing - Holocaust Affirmers have long ago abandoned trying to prove that the Holocaust happened. They now merely declare, that it is not possible to prove that it did not happen. But a really hundred percent negative proof is not possible in principle. It is of course possible to make the Holocaust unfalsifiable if we assume that all bodies were somehow disappeared without trace, that it is possible to organise the mass killing without leaving any documentary evidence and so on. You can do this with any theory, even, as I have discussed in a post in another section, in Physics: By adding enough "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" fudge factors, you can always bring General Relativity back into agreement with observation.

The question to Holocaust Affirmers is therefore: What would you accept as falsification of the Holocaust narrative? About everything that can be falsified has already been falsified!

[Wetzelrad]

The argument that most needs to be dealt with is the one about sensitivity and morality, as seemingly every authority endorses it. For example Raul Hilberg wrote:

Himmler asked Nebe "to turn over in his mind" various other killing methods more humane than shooting. Nebe asked for permission to try out dynamite on the mentally ill people. Von dem Bach and Wolff protested that the sick people were not guinea pigs, but Himmler decided in favor of the attempt... The eventual answer to Himmler’s request was the gas van.
The Destruction of the European Jews (2003) by Raul Hilberg, p.344

This story originated from Erich von dem Bach-Zalewski, who didn't mention gassing. His idea of humane killing was execution by dynamite. Gerald Reitlinger covered this same sequence of events, leaving out the ludicrous claim about dynamite, but adding the story of an execution at which Himmler shouted and swooned.

Von dem Bach-Zalewski told how in August, 1951, Himmler ordered Nebe to carry out in his presence the execution of a hundred inmates of Minsk prison. Von dem Bach-Zalewski watched Himmler closely during the action, saw him stagger at the first volley and almost fall to the ground in a swoon. He observed that, when these raw executioners failed to kill two Jewish women outright, Himmler lost his head and shouted. As a result of his experience, Himmler instructed Nebe to devise more humane means of mass killing. The final result seems to have been an order in the following spring, mentioned by Ohlendorf, to kill women and children only in gas vans.
The Final Solution (1953) by Gerald Reitlinger, p.208

Other versions of the event have it that Himmler vomited or nearly did. There is little reason to believe any of these stories. On page 195, Reitlinger pointed out that Von dem Bach received a light sentence of house arrest despite being a highly ranked SS officer involved in mass shootings that he confessed to. In other words, his confession was a service to the prosecutors and himself.

Another added difficulty is presented in a more recent work by Nestar Russell. He wrote that gassings were also inhumane relative to shootings.

... to use gas vans that could eliminate any disturbing visual spectacles for themselves, but inficted a cruel and prolonged death on the victims. Many German executioners believed the gas van to be an inhumane and “cowardly” means of inficting death. As Hans Stark said of the gas vans during his trial after the war:
“It was a terrible sight.” Judge Hofmeyer: “Did the people appear to have gone through an agonizing death struggle?” “I didn’t look closely; one glimpse was enough for me.” “How did you feel?” “Never again.”
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10 ... -97999-1_8

Stark is supposed to have committed both shootings and gassings, so it's notable that the latter evidently had more effect on him. He is also one of many witnesses who claimed that gassing victims would scream or otherwise resist in ways that you would expect to be mentally taxing. And along the same lines, when Heinz Hermann Schubert confessed, he wrote that shootings could be done humanely.

I know that it was of the greatest importance to Ohlendorf to have the persons who were to be shot killed in the most human and military manner possible, because otherwise--in other methods of killing- the moral strain would have been too great for the execution squad.
Affidavit of Heinz Hermann Schubert, 24 February 1947, IMT document NO-3055

Near the end of his book, Hilberg acknowledged that the reason for using gas was not actually to be more humane.

Much research was expended for the development of devices and methods that arrested propensities for uncontrolled behavior and at the same time lightened the crushing psychological burden on the killers. The construction of gas vans and gas chambers, the employment of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Latvian auxiliaries to kill Jewish women and children, the use of Jews for the burial and burning of bodies—all these were efforts in the same direction. Efficiency was the real aim of all that "humaneness."
The Destruction of the European Jews (2003) by Raul Hilberg, p.1083

So they came up with gassings to be more efficient, says Hilberg. This is so ridiculous it shouldn't merit comment, yet I see that one of the top results when you do a websearch on this topic makes the same claim. In response, it's enough to say that the time and effort of firing a bullet is one one-hundredth that of shipping someone against their will across the country to be held in a special facility built for the purpose.

As you rightly point out, many shooting executions are claimed to have happened after gas was introduced. As just one example, Majdanek Museum claims that 18,000 Jews were executed on November 3, 1943, "killed by a single shot in the back of the head or neck". As Majdanek was not abandoned until some eight months later, and as there were still both Zyklon B and carbon monoxide on site, the gas chambers ought to have handled this event. That is unless humaneness and efficiency were not real concerns. Or more realistically, that is unless the hypothesized program of extermination did not exist.

[Nessie]

Poland had huge forests to easily supply wood to the AR camps, which would a drop in the annual consumption. Your incredulity is not evidence to prove it was not possible. How can you not understand that?

20% of the country was covered by forest at the time and even so, the amount of raw wood in this is debatable, apart from the fact that freshly cut wood contains only half the calorific value of a drought, so the problem here is doubled. There are no photographs of the devastated region compared to what it was before the war and even if there had been enough wood, the Germans did not have enough men to do the work. The Nazis could want whatever they wanted, they still had to work on the laws of physics, human and logistics, logistics, by the way, did not suit the Germans in the war.

Forced labour meant no labour shortages for the Nazis in 1942-3, during the operation of the AR camps. You are just hypothesising, without producing any evidence, as you argue that your doubts about possibility has any evidential value.

Take your sweet consolation in knowing that all this was technically possible because it happened.

Logically, I do win this debate every time. Add that to evidentially, I also win and it is a slam dunk.

[Nessie]

.....

Example:
Someone might argue against the existence of aliens by stating that it is simply too implausible to believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe, even if there is no concrete evidence to disprove it.

When you split posts, you should be careful to make it clear if the person you are quoting said what you are attributing to them, or not.

Actually, there exists significantly more evidence for alien intelligent life than mass killings by gassing - we can point to one example for intelligent live in the universe, ourselves, but none for a mass killing that was done with gas chambers.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your claim is false. Intelligent alien life is theoretical, with no evidence on earth, save some dubious witness claims that cannot be corroborated or verified. There is no physical or other form of evidence.

Here is a list of the documentary, witness, forensic and circumstantial evidence, just for the gas chambers at A-B;

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... ce-on.html

The camp's Construction Office and Topf & Sons record the planning and construction of heated undressing rooms, barracks to store property, ventilated gas chambers and ovens for mass multiple corpse cremations, for a secretive special action involving prisoners, Jews and Hungarians.

Every single witness, Nazi and Jew, who worked there, states the buildings were used for gassings. That is 34 SS camp staff, 26 Jewish Sonderkommados, 47 other prisoners, 3 doctors and 4 German engineers, 114 in total.

https://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=32920

There is forensic evidence to prove the use of Zyklon B inside the Kremas,

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocau ... t1894.html
https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... port.shtml

But seriously, the comparison is not really appropriate. We don't have interstellar travel yet, so the answer to this question is necessarily highly speculative.

It is a false analogy. You are comparing something with no evidence, to something that is well evidenced.

When it comes to judging methods for mass killing on our (not so) good old earth, however we can do so based on actual solid data. I note that you did not even try to refute this data.

The data is limited, such as how much coke was needed for the ovens. It is often based on witnesses remembering and estimating, so it is uncertain, such as how many people were or could be gassed. It is also subject to dispute, such as disagreement as to how much Prussian Blue staining gassings would cause.

Therefore, trying to determine what happened from the data is inherently unreliable. It is best practice, and normal for a historical or criminal investigation, to gather evidence to determine what happened. Revisionists cannot do that and when they try, it all falls apart for them, as they claim delousing chambers, showers, bomb shelters and corpse stores all as possible uses, with no evidence, not a single witness to corroborate their claim. Revisionists fail to revise.

But the choice of this comparison is highly revealing - Holocaust Affirmers have long ago abandoned trying to prove that the Holocaust happened.

Rubbish, as proven by the decades of research and trawls for evidence, by many historians and criminal investigators.

They now merely declare, that it is not possible to prove that it did not happen. But a really hundred percent negative proof is not possible in principle. It is of course possible to make the Holocaust unfalsifiable if we assume that all bodies were somehow disappeared without trace, that it is possible to organise the mass killing without leaving any documentary evidence and so on. You can do this with any theory, even, as I have discussed in a post in another section, in Physics: By adding enough "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" fudge factors, you can always bring General Relativity back into agreement with observation.

The question to Holocaust Affirmers is therefore: What would you accept as falsification of the Holocaust narrative? About everything that can be falsified has already been falsified!

I know what to do to prove there were no mass gassings inside the A-B Kremas, AR camps and Chelmno. I would start by tracing anyone who worked there and ask them, "did you see gassings?" and "what did you see?". If everyone said no to the first question and then answered the second by describing a function that was, for example, a transit process, I would have already gone a long way to prove the negative. If I then trawled through contemporaneous documents and found multiple references to people not selected to work then being transported back out of the camps, I would have circumstantial evidence to corroborate the witness and I would have proven the negative, I would have proven the gassing claims were false. Revisionists cannot do that. They fail at the basic task of investigation.

As for bodies disappearing without a trace and organising millions of people, without leaving any evidence, what about the impossibility of hiding millions of arrested Jews, supposedly not killed, in 1944, leaving no trace of their existence? Why and how would the Nazis do that?

[PangaeaProxima]

When you split posts, you should be careful to make it clear if the person you are quoting said what you are attributing to them, or not.

If you let an AI write your answer, one can at least expect that you verified it before posting.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your claim is false. Intelligent alien life is theoretical, with no evidence on earth, save some dubious witness claims that cannot be corroborated or verified. There is no physical or other form of evidence.

I think the world can do without your feeble attempts at humor.

Here is a list of the documentary, witness, forensic and circumstantial evidence, just for the gas chambers at A-B;

If you think you can refute what I asserted in the initial post do so or shut up, but don't try to dodge the topic by hopping to another one.

The data is limited, such as how much coke was needed for the ovens.

Please reread my post, this was of course not the data I was talking about. Again, while the "dog ate my homework" excuses for the embarrassing lack of 6 million bodies are a particular thankful target for revisionist critiques, it is not the topic of this thread. I don't think that it is fruitful to mix all possible topics together in every thread.

impossibility of hiding millions of arrested Jews, supposedly not killed, in 1944, leaving no trace of their existence?

Also off topic, but since I think that the utter lack of any actually identified Holocaust victims is a great, until now somewhat neglected argument by revisionists, I will make another post dealing with this aspect. You may comment there.

[Nessie]

When you split posts, you should be careful to make it clear if the person you are quoting said what you are attributing to them, or not.

If you let an AI write your answer, one can at least expect that you verified it before posting.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your claim is false. Intelligent alien life is theoretical, with no evidence on earth, save some dubious witness claims that cannot be corroborated or verified. There is no physical or other form of evidence.

I think the world can do without your feeble attempts at humor.

You are dodging my points about inaccurate quoting and the use of a false analogy.

Here is a list of the documentary, witness, forensic and circumstantial evidence, just for the gas chambers at A-B;

If you think you can refute what I asserted in the initial post do so or shut up, but don't try to dodge the topic by hopping to another one.

You said about evidence, that there is "none for a mass killing that was done with gas chambers.". I have linked you to evidence of the gas chambers at A-B. I have refuted your claim.

The data is limited, such as how much coke was needed for the ovens.

Please reread my post, this was of course not the data I was talking about. Again, while the "dog ate my homework" excuses for the embarrassing lack of 6 million bodies are a particular thankful target for revisionist critiques, it is not the topic of this thread. I don't think that it is fruitful to mix all possible topics together in every thread.

There is not a lack of evidence for all the bodies. Huge areas of disturbed ground containing cremated remains have been found at the AR camps and Chelmno and other mass grave sites are being constantly identified, to this day.

impossibility of hiding millions of arrested Jews, supposedly not killed, in 1944, leaving no trace of their existence?

Also off topic, but since I think that the utter lack of any actually identified Holocaust victims is a great, until now somewhat neglected argument by revisionists, I will make another post dealing with this aspect. You may comment there.

You have clearly not done any detailed research and have fallen for Holocaust denier lies about the lack of evidence. Those lies are to deflect from the total lack of evidence of millions of Jews still alive during the war and on liberation.

I explained to you how to prove there were no gas chambers. You will ignore that because you know you will fail.

[Nazgul]

As for bodies disappearing without a trace and organising millions of people, without leaving any evidence, what about the impossibility of hiding millions of arrested Jews, supposedly not killed, in 1944, leaving no trace of their existence? Why and how would the Nazis do that?

Stick to the topic.

[PangaeaProxima]

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Nothing that you wrote refers to the topic of the thread. It is bad form to try to distract when you have no arguments, so either stay on topic or stay silent.

[Nessie]

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Nothing that you wrote refers to the topic of the thread. It is bad form to try to distract when you have no arguments, so either stay on topic or stay silent.

My last responses were replies to you. You are using the illogical argument that since you find gassings implausible, therefore they did not happen. Why are you relying on an illogical argument and not contemporaneous evidence, such as eyewitnesses and documents, to prove no gassings took place?

[HansHill]

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Nothing that you wrote refers to the topic of the thread. It is bad form to try to distract when you have no arguments, so either stay on topic or stay silent.

My last responses were replies to you. You are using the illogical argument that since you find gassings implausible, therefore they did not happen. Why are you relying on an illogical argument and not contemporaneous evidence, such as eyewitnesses and documents, to prove no gassings took place?

No, he's not doing that. From his OP:

While debunking the details of the alleged gassings is certainly very laudable, unfortunately revisionists usually forget to point out how preposterous and absurd the concept is in principle.

He's making the case we can do both - debunk the details of the gassings, while simultaneously expose how preposterous the whole thing is.

[PangaeaProxima]

My last responses were replies to you. You are using the illogical argument that since you find gassings implausible, therefore they did not happen. Why are you relying on an illogical argument and not contemporaneous evidence, such as eyewitnesses and documents, to prove no gassings took place?

Fact is that carrying out mass killings by gassing are generally highly implausible. You seem to agree, since you don't challenge this assertion. Of course, this does not totally rule out that it is done anyway, but it further strengthens the revisionist position: Something that is highly unlikely and implausible to have happened in the first place, really did not happen.

Here in this thread only the general plausibility and feasibility of carrying out mass killings by gassing are on topic, if you want to discuss the evidence (or lack thereof) for them having been actually carried out do it in another thread were it is on topic (I daresay there are enough of them)

[Nessie]

Nothing that you wrote refers to the topic of the thread. It is bad form to try to distract when you have no arguments, so either stay on topic or stay silent.

My last responses were replies to you. You are using the illogical argument that since you find gassings implausible, therefore they did not happen. Why are you relying on an illogical argument and not contemporaneous evidence, such as eyewitnesses and documents, to prove no gassings took place?

No, he's not doing that. From his OP:

While debunking the details of the alleged gassings is certainly very laudable, unfortunately revisionists usually forget to point out how preposterous and absurd the concept is in principle.

He's making the case we can do both - debunk the details of the gassings, while simultaneously expose how preposterous the whole thing is.

You have just described him using the logically flawed argument from incredulity. Just because he thinks he has debunked gassings and they are preposterous, does not therefore there were no gassings. To prove something did or did not happen, you need evidence, not argument.

[Nessie]

My last responses were replies to you. You are using the illogical argument that since you find gassings implausible, therefore they did not happen. Why are you relying on an illogical argument and not contemporaneous evidence, such as eyewitnesses and documents, to prove no gassings took place?

Fact is that carrying out mass killings by gassing are generally highly implausible. You seem to agree, since you don't challenge this assertion. Of course, this does not totally rule out that it is done anyway, but it further strengthens the revisionist position: Something that is highly unlikely and implausible to have happened in the first place, really did not happen.

Here in this thread only the general plausibility and feasibility of carrying out mass killings by gassing are on topic, if you want to discuss the evidence (or lack thereof) for them having been actually carried out do it in another thread were it is on topic (I daresay there are enough of them)

Would you accept that it is highly unlikely and implausible, that the Nazis, knowing they were being accused, from 1941 onwards, of running death camps and mass murdering Jews, would then fail to produce any evidence of millions of Jews still alive in 1944 and then somehow hide those Jews from the advancing Allies in 1945 and then admit to a crime they did not commit after the war?

Is that unlikeliness and implausibility evidence to prove anything? If not, then since it is the argument you are using, that form of argument does not work as evidence to prove.

I do not think that the Nazis arresting millions of Jews, with a lot of assistance from the countries they occupied or aligned with, is implausible. I do not think transporting them to a few specific camps is implausible. I do not think the construction of gas chambers, or modification of crematoriums to be used for gassings is implausible. I think that the destruction of evidence by the Nazis is highly suspicious and that witness descriptions of how the gas chambers worked, in particular the eyewitnesses who worked at them, is plausible.

Is that opportunity and plausibility evidence to prove anything?

[HansHill]

You have just described him using the logically flawed argument from incredulity. Just because he thinks he has debunked gassings and they are preposterous, does not therefore there were no gassings. To prove something did or did not happen, you need evidence, not argument.

Its not a logical fallacy to describe something as implausible, and generate a discussion around its plausibility and the details of its history and process. You laughably still dont understand logical fallacies. Bring this back to your containment thread if you wish to discuss fallacies there.

For those wondering, yes indeed - our friend Nessie here has an entire thread where people have attempted numerous times to explain logical fallacies to him. Enjoy!

https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=97

[Nazgul]

Would you accept that it is highly unlikely and implausible, that the Nazis, knowing they were being accused, from 1941 onwards, of running death camps and mass murdering Jews, would then fail to produce any evidence of millions of Jews still alive in 1944 and then somehow hide those Jews from the advancing Allies in 1945 and then admit to a crime they did not commit after the war?

The accusations were just a continuation of the propaganda from WWI. I have shown that over 3000 Jewish Labour camps existed in 1944 with a further western drive as the Russians also drove westward. It is interesting that the majority of the camps were not SS but Schemlt or Todt, where for some reason a vast majority of the documents went missing. These were also in the areas over run by the Polish and Soviet extraordinary commission to Investigate Nazi crime. A huge staff of over 14 million. Instead of finding evidence they went about deleting the evidence which would have proved the opposite of the claims. It was necessary for the Russians to have some moral high ground.